Check out today’s morning edition of the Weather Xtreme video on the player below, or on iTunes:
No doubt the most interesting forecast period we will discuss today will come next week as we could be facing our first significant severe weather threat in a long time. But first….
SHORT TERM: Beautiful weather for Alabama today and tomorrow. Ample sunshine with very mild afternoons; we are forecasting 77 today and 79 tomorrow; some West Alabama cities could reach the low 80s tomorrow.
West of Alabama, a severe weather risk is up tomorrow from East Texas over to Mississippi and north through much of Arkansas and West Tennessee. Not exactly a classic setup, but some active storms are possible in that region. Those showers and storms will move into Alabama, but by the time they reach us they will lose most of their punch due to limited moisture and the lack of serious instability.
Right now it looks like the best chance of showers and storms will come from about 3:00 a.m. through 1:00 p.m. Saturday. Rainfall amounts probably won’t be all that heavy, with totals under 1/2 inch. At this time it does look like there will be a risk of some rain during the Auburn/Georgia game at Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday (that is one of those early, 11:30 kickoffs).
Sunday looks delightful with lots of sunshine, a cool morning and a mild afternoon.
NEXT WEEK: Strap in for a wild ride. A few showers could show up on Monday with a weak system passing north of here, but the big show holds off until mid-week. There will be more model madness in coming days, but I think we have a high confidence opinion of the events to come. A full latitude upper trough will carve out over the central part of the nation on Tuesday, and a major storm system will form under that, and should bring a risk of severe storms to areas west of Alabama during the day Tuesday. Then, as the upper trough deepens and shifts to the east, we will have a risk of severe thunderstorms in the Tuesday night to Wednesday time frame. We can’t be too specific at this point on the timing or the magnitude of the threat, but it looks pretty significant.
It has been a long time since we have had a big severe weather threat, so this weekend is a great time to review your severe weather plan with your family. Maybe nothing will happen, but you know the deal. Better to be prepared.
Following the severe weather threat, much colder air rolls in here on Thursday and Friday. I don’t think it will be any kind of record-breaking cold; the thickness values are very low due to the cold air aloft with a big upper low that could cut off and sit over the Midwest for a few days. This means chilly and unsettled weather for the end of next week; maybe some snow at times for areas north of Alabama.
I don’t even want to look at Thanksgiving week yet… lets get through next week and then we can deal with the November 20-25 time frame, which is the busiest travel period of the year.
PARTY CHANGES: We made a major upgrade in the scripts that run our sister site, weatherparty.com. Traffic has really increased over there in recent months, and we had to make the change to defeat the spam bots and make the site more user friendly. There are a ton of new features… but you will have to re-register. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I think you will like the site enhancement. Be sure and register; then you can submit stories, and vote on the ones already submitted to determine what shows up on the front page. Check it out.
Yet another busy today… I will be the emcee at a big senior adult function this morning hosted by the Scott Dawson Evangelistic Association at The Club… Art Linkletter will be speaking and the joint will be packed. I will be back in the office by early afternoon and should have the afternoon Weather Xtreme video ready on time by 3:30 p.m… Enjoy the sunny and mild day!
